Our friends at the Iowa Department of Transportation posted a Facebook warning recently noting that railroad companies don’t want people posing for photos on the train tracks. People do this frequently. People do this when trains are coming. People do this despite warnings they may be ticketed, or hurt.

This is trespassing, the railroads note. And dangerous. 

The latest warning brought several things to mind:

A young woman just a week or two ago posed for a photographer on the tracks near our offices in the old train depot downtown as a train, headed her way, sounded its horn a few blocks away. We have watched many senior photos feature the rails in the background. 

Now that 50 years and perhaps the statute of limitations have passed, I can admit I used rails for balance beams many times as a youth. I grew up across the street from railroad tracks in Ames — home of the very DOT that now says my behavior was inappropriate. I have to admit, too, that besides the apparent trespassing (hey, they didn’t post signs to that effect), I also was fond of defacing government currency (pennies, typically) by placing them in the train’s path. Oh, and I may have attempted to hop a slow-moving train or two. 

Perhaps worse, the Business Record set up a photo shoot last year featuring DOT Director Paul Trombino cheerfully and willingly standing a few inches from the tracks near our building. We asked him to stay off the tracks, but the cover photo we published May 8, 2015, shows he was very close to them. We aren’t sure if Trombino read his department’s Facebook warning recently. You can ask him at our Power Breakfast on transportation Oct. 5. He’ll be on the panel.